Inspiring the Future

BGB recently ran a workshop for local school students at the Guildhall to support the Inspire+ charity.  The Business Skills Pathway is an opportunity for local businesses to be able to offer advice and 'life-skill' training to local secondary school pupils and also give them the opportunity to gain work placements for much needed voluntary experience.  

Rather than boring the students with a long presentation, we set a challenge to research BGB from the sources within the room to answer 12 questions with a prize at the end of it.  The two key messages were: 

*Do your research on the company you apply for 

& 

*Make sure you are interested and passionate about the career you follow.

Official Press Release from Inspire+ below:

Inspire+, along with local Grantham businesses and the support of the Grantham Business Club launched on the 24^th November 2016 the Inspire+ Business Skills Pathway for local secondary school pupils from the Inspire+ Sports Leadership Academy.

The Business Skills Pathway is an opportunity for local businesses to be able to offer advice and 'life-skill' training to local secondary school pupils and also give them the opportunity to gain work placements for much needed voluntary experience. The businesses involved in this innovative programme are: Inspire+, Grantham Specsavers, Viking Signs, RecruitME, SKDC, BGB Innovation & 1Life. Students attending are all part of the Inspire+ Leadership Academy and are from local secondary schools; Priory Ruskin Academy, Walton Girls, St Hughs, KGGS, Charles Read Academy and Stamford Welland Academy.

The conference to launch this initiative was at the Grantham Guildhall Centre thanks to SKDC. Students participated in 4 practical workshops which were: leadership, researching companies for work, Interview skills & being ready for work and finally communication & presentation skills.

The aim of the conference is for Inspire+ to be able to further up-skill their leaders on top of the sports coaching courses they provide and for the businesses to help support this development and promote the opportunities for work and business within Grantham. Following the conference all the students will get the opportunity to apply for work experience placements at the businesses. This gives them a great opportunity to gain real life work experience in business.This initiative is the first of its kind in the county and everyone involved is hoping for the programme to develop and attract more students and businesses to be involved.

Darren Joint, Viking Signs: "Inspire+ already has a lot to be proud of, the addition of this Business Skills Pathway to the wide range of opportunities they can offer to enthusiastic and motivated students, really is the icing on the cake. For the Grantham Business Club this is an opportunity to further our aims of encouraging talented young people to consider careers with one of our great member businesses or even starting their own business here in Grantham. Viking Signs is proud to also sponsor the event and who knows - the next talented member of our already amazing team, might be one of the people we meet on the day!?

Bijal Ladva, Grantham Specsavers: "Specsavers and Inspire+ have worked together for the past 3 years, and I feel that we have mutually benefited from our collaborations. Through facilitation by Inspire+, Specsavers have gone into primary and secondary schools to give talks on the importance of eye health and careers. We are very excited to be part of this initiative, which promotes our core values and developing our next generation.?

All partners involved hope that the students will really benefit from learning life and job skills from local businesses and gain valuable experience to add to their CV when applying for jobs and universities with the pathway showing the way to work with local businesses.